


w/l ratio

by deadlybride



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Football, Gen, Post-Episode: s14e12 Prophet and Loss, Season/Series 14 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: After they come home, Sam and Dean watch the game.





	w/l ratio

**Author's Note:**

> slightly late Super Bowl fic; it turned into a coda for 14.12

They come back to the bunker and it’s empty, again. The place has been empty a lot since Dean came back. Sam’s part of it, he keeps sending the others out on hunts, but they’ve started finding their own, too. Living, in this world that’s not yet destroyed, and he hopes that’s the bigger part of it. Some of it is that they’re avoiding Dean, too. He doesn’t think Dean knows, or that he’d care if he did, but it bothers Sam. He doesn’t need additional evidence for Dean that he’s not to be trusted. Used to be their belief in each other was all they needed. Dean’s here, and that’s a victory, but it’s one Sam wished he didn’t have to win. His knuckles hurt, a little. He keeps stretching his hand against his thigh.

Castiel sees them both down into the bunker and then announces he’s going to pick up Jack. “What?” Dean says, voice a scrape. They didn’t talk much on the drive. He’s frowning, his arm wrapped under his ribs. “Where’s the kid?”

“Tulsa,” Sam says. Dean’s eyes swing his way and Sam shrugs. “He and Maggie and Cora, and Keith for backup. Just checking out the area.” He turns to Castiel, standing stiff by the stairs, watching Dean. “They’re staying at the Cowboy Inn, off 75.” Cas nods and stares at Dean almost threatening for another long moment and then disappears up the stairs, and when Sam turns around again Dean’s eyes have closed, his chin dropped to his chest. “Jack texted. He hopes you’re doing okay.”

Dean snorts, and leans hard against the map table. “Good kid,” he says, quiet, and Sam’s still so goddamn angry at him he could throw another punch and break his damn nose, but he wants to hug him again, too, wants to hold him so tight and close that he can’t breathe, that he makes some dumb joke about Sam’s octopus arms, that he can feel Dean’s heart beating.

He doesn’t do either. He’s tired. They drove all the way through the night into the morning, and Sam dozed for a while in the passenger seat but it wasn’t any kind of decent sleep. He kept lurching awake, certain for a second that when he looked over the driver’s side would be empty. It’s just after three o'clock and neither of them have eaten. That’s somewhere to start. “I’m making grilled cheese,” he announces, and Dean looks at him, at least. “Want one?”

Dean sucks in his cheek on one side and looks like he wants to say no. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sure. I’m taking a shower, though, first.”

“Try not to take forty minutes this time,” Sam says. “I’m not keeping yours warm for you.”

Dean huffs and nods, his mouth tucked into something that’s nearly a smile. God, they’re both tired.

Sam cooks. This is one of the few things he knows he’s good at. He used to make grilled cheese on a hotplate in his dorm room, back when. Before that, even, when he was a kid, and Dean was gone. He leans over the griddle, the heat bathing his face. That conversation in the car. So many things left buried, things he wishes would stay buried, and they keep coming up. Nothing ever stays dead. He’d hate that if it wasn’t something he’d pinned his heart to, so many times before.

To his credit, Dean is quick, and Sam’s got two sandwiches each loaded up on plates when he comes into the kitchen, in clean jeans and one of his henleys and socks, still toweling his hair dry. “Think that might’ve been a record,” Sam says, and hands him a plate.

“You just don’t know how to enjoy the finer things in life,” Dean says, and if it’s not all that much like his normal self it’s at least closer. He slings the towel over his shoulder and lifts the edge on the top sandwich. Just a little underdone, to Sam’s taste, which makes it just how Dean likes it.

“Hey,” Sam says, and then when Dean looks up at him and meets his eyes he doesn’t know what to say. He feels like he punctured something, there in the dirt by the car, and he’s drained. Dean’s expression changes, just like that, and he looks for a second so sad and sorry that Sam wants to cover up his face, hide both of them away, and to stop Dean saying anything he blurts out, “Today’s Sunday,” and Dean says, derailed, “Uh, yeah,” and Sam says, “Let’s watch the game.”

They’ve, neither of them, watched more than about two hours total of football this year. Even so, Dean’s eyes clear with relief and he nods. “Yeah, sounds good,” he says, and then, “You better not root for the Bradys.”

Sam snorts and pushes Dean’s shoulder. A lot softer than he did before. He leads the way, passes by his room, and when he pushes open the door to Dean’s little den he knows without looking that Dean’s surprised. They haven’t spent much time in here, what with… everything. The other-worlders don’t go in here, though, and it’s still the same as it was when Dean left it. Two armchairs, side by side.

Kickoff already happened, along with whatever pageantry was involved. Football isn’t really Dean’s game, he prefers baseball, but he settles in easy enough. He takes the Rams’ side, immediately. “Always root for the underdog, Sammy,” he says, one sandwich down and the other in hand. “Haven’t you ever watched a sports movie? Come on.”

“Sometimes data tells us a little more than feelings,” Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes. Brady throws another out to Edelman and gains a first down. “Case in point.”

“That blatantly ignores the power of a good halftime speech from the gipper,” Dean says. He pulls the handle on his recliner and puts his feet up, socks pointing toward the TV. “Turns the whole thing around.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, looking down at his half-eaten grilled cheese, and sets it aside on the floor. The game’s a weird one, slow and staggering. The Rams’ coach is supposed to be some young genius, but there’s not a lot of evidence of it. The Patriots aren’t sparkling either. Sam’s favorite thing about football has always been the strategy, ever since he was a little kid watching Brick Holmes. Two coaches, playing chess with fallible pieces. This is turning into a defensive struggle, rather than an offensive one. Linemen holding back a surging tide with everything they’ve got.

Halftime comes and Dean’s asleep, his face turned away in the soft cushion of the recliner so Sam can’t see the bruise starting on his cheekbone. Sam picks up their plates and takes them to the kitchen, dumps his congealed uneaten sandwich and washes the dishes. That stupid box, that coffin, is still sitting outside, in the snow. Sam can't stand looking at it. There was a while there, on the drive through the cold hours before dawn, when he’d thought about what could’ve been. Dean, alone under the oppressive weight of the sea. They’ve been through solitary confinement, before. This would be worse. And then, on the shore, Sam would be—

He brings a cold six-pack from the fridge back with him. The stupid neon light is on and this room seems—warmer, somehow, than the rest of the bunker. The halftime show’s over and the Patriots have the ball. He sets the six-pack down with a clink and says, “Dean,” and Dean’s head turns toward him, his face flinching somehow before his eyes open. Sam smiles at him and Dean drags a hand over his mouth, pain in the corners of his mouth and in the lines beside his eyes, and Sam says, “Hey, your Rams actually got some points on the board,” so Dean can look at that instead of whatever’s in his head.

“Damn straight,” he says, hoarse, and he accepts the beer when Sam hands it to him. They don’t talk much, through the rest of the game. There are a lot of punts. A sack, on the poor Rams QB who looks barely older than Jack, and then Brady throws an interception that makes Dean whistle, and they both hiss when the Rams miss a field goal that would’ve given them a little more dignity.

“Told you,” Sam says, when the Patriots are jumping around all over the field, pre-made hats crammed onto every head. Super Bowl LIII Champions. They look so happy.

“They win all the time, I don’t know why they’re so damn surprised about it,” Dean says. “Pretty boring game.”

They’re each on their third beers. The Rams players are slumped on the sidelines, leaning against each other, miserable. Sam shrugs. “Touch and go there, for a while,” he says, and leans down to get them both fresh bottles. A little warm now, but not too bad. He pops the caps on both beers and waits for Dean to drain his last before he hands over the new. He holds out his bottle to toast. “Defensive victories still count as a W.”

Dean scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip, nods. He clinks the neck of his bottle against Sam’s, and they take a swallow together. Maybe when Jack and Cas get back they can teach Jack a little about football. For now—he’s glad it’s just them. “Maybe next year we can make a real bet,” he says, eyes on the television.

Dean’s ankles cross, out on the footrest of the chair. He sighs, but he reaches out and grips Sam’s shoulder, too. “Sure thing, Sammy,” he says, and releases his grip. Sam chews the inside of his cheek, eyes stinging, and wishes more than anything that he could know for sure if Dean meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](http://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/182637389064/wl-ratio)


End file.
